During a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) sponsored seminar titled UC (unified communications), Modernizing the Way We Work, executives from CMS Consulting outlined the benefits of implementing a UC solution within a desktop environment.
Alex Chan, vice-president of business development at CMS Consulting, a Toronto-based professional IT services company, said with people changing the way they work across geographies and time zones, and the devices they choose to work on, businesses need to keep up to meet the needs of the always-changing workplace.
“Businesses still need to manage compliance and risk,” Chan said. “They also need to manage IT cost and complexity, as well as working to improve their operational efficiencies.”
CMS Consulting, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, defines a UC solution as bridging “the gap between telephony and computing to deliver real-time messaging, voice and conferencing to the desktop environment,” Chan explained.
A demo during the seminar showcased Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. With these solutions, Chan said, businesses can receive voice, data and video connectivity features and functionalities.With Office Communicator, employees can use instant messaging to reach out to their colleagues. Web, audio and video conferencing are also available, in addition to identity and presence, all in a familiar Microsoft user interface.
“Identity lets the user log in once to get e-mail, voicemail, instant messaging and so on,” Chan said. “With presence, employees can see who’s available and what their online status is.”
Jon Arnold, principal analyst at J Arnold & Associates, said while Microsoft has UC solutions, they’re not a vendor that is known for its voice capabilities.
Compared to a vendor such as Cisco Systems, which delivers UC and voice solutions off of the network, Arnold said in Microsoft’s UC vision, solutions are brought about through software.
“Most enterprises trust Microsoft for what they do,” Arnold said. “Whether they trust them for voice though, that’s another question. Microsoft has voice already integrated into its (UC) software solution with a softphone integrated into the desktop, so users can get click to call capabilities in that environment without the need for a phone. So, in Microsoft’s belief, users don’t really need a PBX.”
In order for Microsoft to gain a stronger presence in this space, Arnold said the company must prove it can “do voice and other UC capabilities at a comparable level and scale, similar to what another incumbent telephony vendors can also deliver.”
For channel partners, Arnold says this means opportunities for them because UC, he said, is still in its early days.
“There’s still a long way to go in educating the market because there’s still a lot of learning to be done,” Arnold explains. “This is where the channel comes in because their job is to educate the market and also to work on getting early adopters. In places where the Microsoft culture is already very strong, that’s where partners will have their best chances of seeing adoption.”
Brian Bourne, president of CMS Consulting, said when it comes to UC implementations, many customers don’t have the resources to put a complete UC solution in all at once.
“In these cases, a lot of customers will start with things such as Web conferencing, presence and instant messaging, because that’s where they see the biggest ROI,” Bourne said. “Every organization and business case is different, so that’s why you start with the building blocks that are the most relevant to the company first.”
